“The Astonishing” is a disappointment after the self-titled album (which was a step down from “A Dramatic Turn of Events”).
I respect Petrucci’s ambition and willingness to try new things, but I couldn’t take all the cringe-inducing melodramatic lyrics and singing (LaBrie’s voice isn’t well suited for ballads) and after the first few all-the-way-through listens, I cut out the cheesiest 10 songs. Then a few days later I dropped 5 more. For the last week I've been listening to 15 songs, and I’m probably going to cut out 5 more songs this week.
To be fair, no Dream Theater album is good start-to-finish, and the remaining 10 songs are still 45 minutes of music. “Moment of Betrayal” and “A New Beginning” are standout tracks, and there are a lot of other wonderful moments: the ending of “The Gift of Music”, the middle and end of “Three Days”, the middle of “2285 Entr’acte”, and most of “Heaven’s Cove”, “The Path That Divides”, “The Walking Shadow”, and “My Last Farewell”. It’s a shame the awesome intro of “A Life Left Behind” isn’t part of a different song... it's mostly terrible after 1:23.
I may stitch together the best parts of the songs into one giant “Astonishing” medley.